Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: surgery
This week, the articles that we have been reading at the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) discuss interesting ideas to improve patient care:
Use Artificial Intelligence to Manage Opioid Use
As the opioid crisis continues on, this article by Cami Rosso, “Using AI to Manage Opioid Use in Hospital ICUs” raises an interesting possibility – the use of artificial intelligence to manage opioid use:
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network defines an opioid naive patient as one who “has not chronically receiving opioid analgesics on a daily basis.”
Recent research and opinion in patient safety suggest precautions for treating the opioid naive patient be taken: Continue reading “Two Precautions for Treating Opioid Naive Patients”
Fox 9 News recently reported on the death of Gary Bougie following routine gall bladder surgery:
Gary Bougie was two months shy of his 36th birthday when he died nearly two years ago. His family suspects he died from a condition called opioid-induced respiratory depression after going to the hospital for gallbladder surgery and they want to warn other families about how to possibly avoid a tragedy like this …
Bougie had just opened his new restaurant when he went to United Hospital for surgery to remove his gallbladder back in April of 2014. He stayed overnight for observation, but his parents say learning the next morning he’d passed away from complications during the night was surreal.
While the medical examiner ruled there was no anatomical cause for Bougie’s death, his family believes the mix of pain meds he was on caused him to fall into such a deep sleep, he stopped breathing. They are suing the hospital. Their attorney says even though nurses checked on Bougie once an hour, they should have used a fingertip sensor that would have alerted them when the level of oxygen in his blood went too low. Continue reading “Was Gary Bougie’s Post-op Gallbladder Surgery Death Preventable?”
A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine concludes that there are too many patient deaths within 30 days of major surgery and many of these are preventable.
Dr. P.J. Devereaux, principal investigator, observes:
Almost no one now dies in the operating room or recovery room, but after surgery there is still an appreciable death rate.
Continue reading “Death After Surgery – Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Dec 11, 2015)”
If patients going into surgery were assessed for the risk of opioid-induced respiratory depression (OIRD), how many adverse events and death would be prevented?
Would such an assessment have placed in the at risk category patients like John Lachance (who underwent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff) or Leah Coufal (who had elective surgery to repair a condition called pectus carinatum)?
Continue reading “Assessing Surgical Patients for Risk of Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression”
A recent at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found that medication errors during surgery are common and preventable.
Continue reading “Medication Errors During Surgery are Common and Preventable”